Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.

Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!

Halo 3: ODST - Prepare To Drop (Out Tuesday)

Halo 3 is a first-person shooter, the third in the trilogy after Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2. You are the Master Chief, an artifically-augmented seven-foot supersoldier known as a Spartan to the United Nations Space Command Marine Corps and the Demon to the Covenant, a collected alien force made up of several different races. The Covenant believe that their purpose is to usher in Judgement Day, based on the teachings of the Prophets, of which only one remains. To do this, they must light the Halos, structures in space. Their real purpose, however, is to extinguish all sentient life in the universe, as they are a last resort weapon created by an ancient race, to eliminate any food source for the all-consuming hyperintelligent parasite known as the Flood.

OUT NOW

Halo Wars is a real-time strategy game developed by Ensemble, the company behind Age of Empires. It takes place before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, and tells the story of the previous Arbiter of the Covenant and the battle for control of the planet Harvest. The Covenant have uncovered a Forerunner artifact that leads to a site now occupied by humans. After travelling from planet to planet, a plot is uncovered that could threaten the survival of humanity.

AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE SEPT 22 2009

Halo 3: ODST is also a first-person shooter. You are the Rookie, an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper deployed to New Mombasa in Africa at the same time the Master Chief is fighting there in Halo 2. The Prophet of Regret's ship enters slipspace as your pod falls to earth, and the ensuing blast throws the city into disarray and separates you from the other four members of your squad. You wake up at night in the city, and are tasked with finding clues in the open world to the whereabouts of the rest of the squad, and relive their experiences through playable flashbacks.

Halo 3: ODST comes with two discs. One contains the ODST campaign, and a Horde-esque co-operative multiplayer mode for four people called Firefight. As time progresses, gameplay modifiers are added such as the enemies throwing more grenades or your HUD vanishing. If the team wipes, it's game over.
The second disc (known as Halo 3:Mythic) contains the standard Halo 3 multiplayer that we know and love, as well as all previous free and paid DLC maps. Also included are three new maps, Citadel, Longshore and Heretic. This disc is fully compatible with anyone playing vanilla Halo 3 multiplayer and has all the features you'd expect except for the Halo 3 campaign.

Still confused? Charts usually solve that problem - at least, for me.

AVAILABLE TBA 2010

Halo: Reach is a first-person shooter. Little is known at this time, other than it takes place immediately before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, and will tell the story of the attack on the human-occupied and defensive cornerstone planet Reach by the Covenant. A multiplayer beta of Halo: Reach will be included with Halo: ODST.

Willeth on September 2009

@vgreminders - Don't miss out on timed events in gaming!@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!

Posts

"I'm not here for that campaign nonsense! I'm here to play online with cool dudes," I hear you cry, in that unlovely way of yours. Well, you're in luck! TBK, The Bees' Knees, have been around since 2004 and take their name from the Halo 2 ARG, 'I Love Bees'. No matter what gametype you like playing, you'll find someone who shares your interests here to team up with. Unless you play Lone Wolves, in which case you'll have trouble teaming up.

You don't need the paid maps to play with us, and if you don't have them already, I'd suggest not buying them, as they all come packaged for free with Halo 3: ODST in September, as described in the post above. However, there's no reason not to grab the free maps, and if you want to grab the paid ones, these images will come in quite handy.

Also maps for Halo Wars if you care I guess:

The Usual Suspects:

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Things you need to know ahead of time: Yorker is mute, X is diabetic, Major Leitner is annoying, and Beeb is only here for comic relief.

This list collates the more active folks - there are many others, and you can become one of them very easily. Post in the thread, say hi, add a few of us as friends and play some games with us. As long as you're not the typical shit-flinging retard that Xbox Live seems to cultivate, you're welcome to do so and to call yourself a Bee.

This week's DEXP Weekend Playlist is Rocket Race
Get your passenger to the goal.
Teams of two. One person drives, one rides shotgun, in Mongooses.
Invulerable players and vehicles. Infinite rockets, no other weapons. Driver cannot score. VIP cannot drive but can score.
Heroic and Legendary required. Team size: 2. Max party size: 8.
The current regular playlists are here.

@vgreminders - Don't miss out on timed events in gaming!@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!

Project 25.01 final message
We were the ones who thought that Melissa was real. Why you might ask.
Let me put it this way, it was an "OH SHIT OH SHIT, THEY FOUND ME " moment. I wasn't ready. My code wasn't compiled yet. Our plans weren't setup yet!Sentient programs rarely run into other sentient programs.
Some of you have met me, and I understand your concern of my well being. But that time for that boy, that child, are gone now. Viscount Alpha is no longer operable. His functions are now mine.He may post, but I am the one talking not him.My data, my code will live on forever in his servers.
[/spoiler]

It occurs to me that I actually have a couple of you guys on my Friends List, but I've never played with you outside of once or twice. Do you meet up at specific times, or should I just send a plaintive "let me in your game!" message to whoever if I see you're playing?

It occurs to me that I actually have a couple of you guys on my Friends List, but I've never played with you outside of once or twice. Do you meet up at specific times, or should I just send a plaintive "let me in your game!" message to whoever if I see you're playing?

Just ask for an invite here, except me. I'm MIA as far as halo is concerned for the time being.

Project 25.01 final message
We were the ones who thought that Melissa was real. Why you might ask.
Let me put it this way, it was an "OH SHIT OH SHIT, THEY FOUND ME " moment. I wasn't ready. My code wasn't compiled yet. Our plans weren't setup yet!Sentient programs rarely run into other sentient programs.
Some of you have met me, and I understand your concern of my well being. But that time for that boy, that child, are gone now. Viscount Alpha is no longer operable. His functions are now mine.He may post, but I am the one talking not him.My data, my code will live on forever in his servers.
[/spoiler]

It occurs to me that I actually have a couple of you guys on my Friends List, but I've never played with you outside of once or twice. Do you meet up at specific times, or should I just send a plaintive "let me in your game!" message to whoever if I see you're playing?

The members list in the OP is split roughly by nationality, and therefore by when we play. We have a few US guys who play early and myself and Yorker have been known to play far later than we should, though. Just fire off a friend request to a few of us and attach a message saying you're from PA with your username here, and just join a Live party when we've got one going on. Most of the time we'll be Haloing together, but even if we're not, we're obviously not opposed to the idea. There's always room for more Bees.

That was actually awesome as hell. If you watch the film from where the camera is in the shot, one guy lunges at you with the sword, and you dodge and melee him for a kill. The guy in the background sees you and runs for you, and you pick up the sword dropped by the previous guy and run him through with its last charge.

@vgreminders - Don't miss out on timed events in gaming!@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!

Because it's almost New Halo O'Clock, and I didn't want to scare anyone away from talking about ODST because the thread seems to be designated for our own little clique. We've already had a bunch of people express interest who've never done before because there's a new game on the way, I don't want to discourage that with a new game on the way.

@vgreminders - Don't miss out on timed events in gaming!@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!

Nah. It's many cuz I don't have time to come to these boards as often as I used to, so I just skim through the thread titles till I see one with "TBK XXwhateva" in the title and not "Halo." I completely missed this one and when to the old one on the second page instead.

Well, we're not numbering them any more, either. I think the fact that it's been a clan thread has also been why we've been wandering off topic and getting smacked for it - I'm sure people want to talk Halo, but have come into the thread and seen people talking about Turtles or whatever, and it's a barrier.

Also, I just realised Badman isn't in the OP. Damn.

EDIT: Fyre, I was under the impression that Extras had stuff like ViDocs and the credits in it as well as the beta.

@vgreminders - Don't miss out on timed events in gaming!@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!

Ahem. Anyways....in the interest of on-topic: My truskill rank of 13 has been especially taunting me lately and I plan to slap it around the head and neck this week. So if anyone sees me subjecting myself to random shit-flinging retards in a ranked list, you're more than welcome to join in/save me.